Claiming Noah (35 page)

Catriona rolled over on to her side and propped her head on her hand. Spencer put down his book and looked at her expectantly.

‘How am I going to convince a judge that I didn't realise my own son had died?' she asked him. ‘He's going to think I'm a horrible mother.'

Spencer marked his page with a bookmark and set it aside. ‘You just need to be honest. You weren't really yourself at the time, and they looked incredibly similar. It isn't that hard to believe.'

Catriona nodded. ‘They really did. I mean, James must have shown you photos of Sebastian when he visited you in prison, and then when you met Noah you didn't realise they weren't the same child.' She stared at him, wondering why he wasn't looking at her. ‘Or did you? Did you notice a difference between them?'

Spencer paused for a second before responding and Catriona saw an emotion pass over his face that looked to her like guilt.

‘No,' he said. ‘They looked exactly the same to me.'

He got out of bed and pulled on a T-shirt. ‘Do you want breakfast?' he asked, still without looking at her. ‘I'm going downstairs to make some.'

‘Hang on,' Catriona called out as he made his way towards the bedroom door. ‘Come back here for a second.'

He stopped at the doorway and then slowly, reluctantly, turned around and walked back to the foot of the bed. Catriona sat up and studied his face. He still looked guilty.

‘What was that before, when I asked you about Sebastian?'

‘What do you mean? Nothing.'

‘It's not nothing, it's something. What aren't you telling me?'

Spencer's gaze drifted from the bed to the bedside table, to the floor, to the window. Anywhere but at her. He eventually fixed his gaze on the photo of Catriona before he responded.

‘James came to see me while I was in prison. He was really upset and he needed someone to talk to. You were away . . .'

‘Away? Where was I?'

Spencer glanced at her before looking back at the bedside table. ‘At the clinic.'

‘When I was at Gardenia Gardens?'

Spencer nodded.

‘But why was James . . . Oh God.' She felt a wave of nausea pass over her. ‘Sebastian. He told you? You knew Sebastian had died?'

Spencer closed his eyes and nodded so slightly it was barely perceptible.

‘You knew?' Catriona repeated, louder this time. ‘You knew and you never told me? How could you do that to me?'

Spencer opened his eyes and finally looked at her. ‘He asked for my help. You and I weren't, you know, together then, and he desperately needed someone to talk to.'

She noticed the regret in his voice, but she didn't feel sorry for him.

‘And once we
were
together?'

He spread his hands open in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I just couldn't. I knew how angry you would be and I couldn't tell you. I'm so sorry. Please, you have to forgive me.'

He sat on the bed and reached for her leg under the covers but she moved it away from him.

‘What did he tell you?' she asked. This time it was she who couldn't meet Spencer's eyes. She wanted to yell at him, to order him out of the house, but her desire to find out more about what happened to Sebastian and how James had concealed his death from her was too great.

‘He told me Sebastian had died and he knew you wouldn't want to have another child, so he didn't know what to do.'

‘Was it your idea for him to keep Sebastian's death from me?'

‘No, of course not,' he said, shaking his head to emphasise the point. ‘But we decided maybe it was best to wait until you got home instead of telling you while you were at the clinic.'

‘And then what happened?'

‘He came to see me in prison again a few days later. He told me he'd found out that there was another child, from that embryo you donated. He said it was a boy, and he was only a month younger than Sebastian.'

Catriona swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. She prepared to ask a question she didn't want to, but needed to. ‘Did you tell him to kidnap Noah?' she asked quietly.

‘No! How can you think that of me? Of course not.'

Catriona let her hands, which had been clenched into fists, open and lower back down on to the bed. ‘Did you know he was going to do it?'

‘No,' Spencer said. ‘I was worried about it, I have to admit, and then once I was released from prison and James told me I could stay with you guys . . . and Sebastian . . . well, it wasn't hard to work out what he had done.'

‘Why didn't you tell me then?'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I guess because my loyalty was with James. He trusted me and was kind enough to give me somewhere to live when I got out of prison. It was already done, Noah was with you and . . . I don't know. You seemed such a happy family together. I didn't want to be the one to change that.'

Spencer and James had deceived her for years. She felt like a fool.

‘What is this ridiculous boy-scout pact you and James have together?' she asked, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Her eyes burned with anger. ‘James committed a crime for you all those years ago. He rented a house for you so you could grow pot in it. He helped you launder the money. He never would have done that for anyone else. And you never told the police that you knew about Sebastian. Doesn't that make you an accessory or something like that? Why do the two of you do this to each other? And don't tell me it's because you're friends, there's more to it than that.'

Spencer avoided her glare. ‘We go back a long way. We've been friends for over thirty years.'

‘Tell me the real reason.' Her voice came out as a growl.

He glanced at her, indecision contorting his features. ‘I can't. I promised James I'd never tell anyone.'

‘I don't care what you promised him. Tell me right now, or you can pack up and leave this house. I'm sick of all this shit. All these secrets, all these lies. I deserve to know the truth. So, tell me.'

Spencer sighed, closed his eyes and leaned back on the bed, resting on his elbows.

‘There was this thing that happened when we were at school,' he said, his eyes still closed. ‘We were probably about fifteen or so. We were typical jug-headed boys, just interested in sports and girls, even though James always did really well at school. He was naturally brainy like that. I could have been, I think, but I never tried, so my grades were bad. Anyway, James had this one teacher he hated. Mr Burgden. He was a Geography teacher. A real prick of a guy. James hated him, and Burgden hated him right back. He'd give him detention for the smallest things and he'd mark him harder on his tests than anyone else, so James was failing the subject.'

Catriona tried to recall whether James had mentioned Mr Burgden to her before, but the name didn't sound familiar. She waited for Spencer to continue. His eyes remained closed but they fluttered below the lids, as if he were having a nightmare.

‘James got really fired up one time,' Spencer continued. ‘It was after he was failed on another Geography test, and he told me he wanted to set fire to Mr Burgden's classroom. I thought he was joking at first, but he got right into it, working out when and how to do it. So, we found ourselves at the school one night, after everyone had gone home, and James had brought a jerry can full of petrol. The classroom door was locked, so James sloshed petrol all over the door and then held a lighter to it. You wouldn't believe how quickly it went up. We started laughing until we heard a noise, someone yelling from inside the room . . . And then we ran away.'

A lump formed in Catriona's throat. She swallowed to dislodge it. ‘Mr Burgden was still in there?'

Spencer nodded. ‘He'd been grading some papers, apparently. The door was on fire, so he couldn't get through it, and the windows were too small for him to fit through. By the time the fire brigade got there he'd already passed out and had burns all over his body.'

‘Was he . . .'

‘Dead?'

Catriona nodded.

‘No, but he was really badly injured. He was in hospital for a month, and he had to get skin grafts all over his body. He didn't come back to school after that.'

Catriona imagined him trying to get through the door, realising escape was hopeless. The fear he must have felt.

‘Was James caught?' she asked.

‘Well, that's the thing. James knew we'd get caught, and he was prepared to take the blame, but I offered to take it for him. He was a better student than me and it didn't bother me if I got expelled. So, I said it was me, and not only did I get expelled but I got six months at Cobham, this real shithole juvenile detention centre in St Marys. I made some dodgy friends in there, and when I got out it never occurred to me to try to straighten up my act. James, on the other hand, went on to finish year twelve, and then uni, and then made a really good career for himself. He deserves all of his success, but I know he still feels bad about letting me take the blame.'

Catriona sighed, the weight of the truth lying heavy on her chest. It all made sense now. Why James always defended Spencer to her and why he never told her the real reason he agreed to be part of Spencer's drug operation. She knew the guilt would have tormented James, pressing on him until he worked out a way to unburden himself.

‘That's why he helped you all those years ago,' she said. ‘You asked him, and he felt like he was repaying you for taking the blame for him.'

‘Yeah. I shouldn't have asked him, it was a really mean thing for me to do, but I knew he'd do it for me and I was pretty messed up back then.'

Catriona chewed her lip, trying to digest everything she had just learned. Spencer had known about Sebastian; James had nearly killed a man; and Spencer and James had been covering for each other for the past thirty years. How could she trust anything either of them told her ever again?

‘Did Sebastian have a funeral?' she asked, suddenly realising that he would likely know the answer. It was the one question she hadn't been able to ask James when she had visited him.

Spencer looked startled by the sudden change in topic. ‘I'm not sure. I don't think so. But I've been to Waverley Cemetery with James to visit Sebastian's plaque.'

Tears pricked at Catriona's eyes as she thought of the body of her dead son cremated and relegated to one of the thousands of plaques in Waverley Cemetery without a proper send-off. She couldn't bear the thought that he was farewelled without her.

‘I need to know where his remains are buried,' she said, appalled at the way she was forced to refer to her child.

‘Of course,' Spencer said, watching her carefully. ‘I'll take you there whenever you like.'

‘Today. I want to say goodbye to my son.'

‘Of course,' he said again. Then, after a pause, he asked hesitantly, ‘Do you . . . Can you forgive me for not telling you about Sebastian?'

‘No,' she said in a voice that was devoid of emotion. ‘But you're all I have, and I need you.'

Catriona let Spencer hug her, though she didn't return his embrace.

‘I'll make it up to you,' Spencer said, still holding her. ‘And I promise I'll never keep secrets from you again. I love you.'

Catriona's hands hovered in the air for a moment, and then she let them rest on Spencer's back. But she couldn't return his declaration of love.

•  •  •

When Catriona walked through the gates of Waverley Cemetery that afternoon, the sun shone warm on her bare shoulders. Spencer was waiting in the car. He had asked if he could come with her, but she told him she didn't want him to. So he pointed out where she could find Sebastian's plaque and stayed in the car. She could feel him watching her as she walked away.

The cemetery bordered the ocean on one side, and she could hear the waves crashing far below the cliff's edge. The grounds were meticulously kept, with grass as short and uniform as a green blanket and roses of every colour gracing the gardens. Trees as old as some of the crumbling headstones provided a respite from the heat as she walked through the shadows they cast upon the ground. Despite her sorrow she was pleased that James had chosen such a beautiful location for Sebastian to be laid to rest.

Sebastian's plaque was one of many that ringed a series of gardens, the plaques and gardens forming concentric circles that grew smaller the closer they were towards the middle. The bronze plaques were raised on stone markers the height of Catriona's knee, making them resemble small headstones even though there were ashes and not bodies buried beneath them. Sebastian's plaque was on the outer ring, in front of a shrub she was pleased to see had flowered, the pink petals providing some colour amid all the stone.

Though she tried to prepare herself for it, a sob escaped from Catriona's throat when she saw the name of her son and the date of his death.

In loving memory of Sebastian John Sinclair, 10 February 2012 – 1 May 2012

Not even three months old. He had barely started living before he was gone. Catriona had tried so many times since she found out about Sebastian's death to recall what he was like in those ten weeks she had with him before she went to the clinic, but it seemed so long ago now and her psychosis had blurred most of her memories. She remembered he had been born with a headful of dark hair, already long enough to form curls, and a tiny pink mouth that was always part way open, as if he had something to say. She remembered that he had started smiling early, even though she didn't appreciate it at the time, and that he waved his arms and legs around in his sleep as if warding off invisible enemies.

Catriona knelt on the grass and sat back on her heels, her eyes level with Sebastian's plaque. The sun glinted off the bronze and she squinted to avoid its glare. She leaned against the stone a glass vase she had brought with her filled with sunflowers, wishing, as she stared at the bright yellow petals, that she had known Sebastian for long enough to find out what his favourite flower was. She wondered if he would have grown in a way that was similar to Noah, if they would have started walking and talking at the same age, if they would have been a similar height and had similar personalities. Or maybe the similarities they had as babies would have disappeared as they aged, resulting in two boys who no longer resembled each other. She wondered if they would have ever had the chance to meet, whether they would have got on, and if they would have thought of each other as brothers.